


with wires that make me tremble

by ophvelias



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Android Fitz, Dubious Science, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, The Framework
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 09:12:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12980853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ophvelias/pseuds/ophvelias
Summary: What he’s feeling—what he thinks he’s feeling, it’s not anything. It’s code and mimicry and emoting.





	with wires that make me tremble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jdphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/gifts).



> Or, how (not) to train your robot.
> 
> Oh my god, okay. This was supposed to be a drabble, I swear. I don't even know what happened. Really though, the idea of a role reversal here was always interesting to me, so this was really cool to explore. And it was kind of nice to give Ophelia a "real" human personality. I always headcanon that !human Ophelia is Canadian (even though her father is Scottish? Just roll with it. I mean, hey, Fitz does mention she's from Toronto, lmao) so spot the hockey and beer stereotypes. Also, I legit edited out about 1k of backstory, so it potentially could've been an even lengthier monstrosity. 
> 
> Title from 'Electrical' by Eves The Behaviour.

In hindsight, it all makes sense. That’s always the problem though.

 

*

Her finger barely slides off the doorbell when the door swings open to reveal a flushed Radcliffe.

“Make yourself comfortable, I’m uh, just finishing cleaning up.”

Ophelia raises an eyebrow as he steps aside to let her in. She brushes past him, side-stepping before he has the chance to embrace her.

“What’s with the grin? Did you start drinking without me?” She asks wryly, setting a six pack of beer down on the kitchen counter and shrugging off her jacket. She throws it over the back of the sofa and moves to rummage through the drawers in search of a bottle opener.

Holden waves a hand dismissively in lieu of an answer.

“Where’s Jemma? Is she not coming?”

“Uh, no. She’s running errands for Mace.” Ophelia makes a face. “Said you had something to show me?” 

The cap of the beer bottle comes off with a hiss and she raises it to her lips. She turns to face the television, only to find her view of the Pens vs. Flyers game obscured by the figure of a young man, all bare skin and a pleasant smile, seemingly unbothered by his shameless nudity. 

Ophelia yelps, the bottle slipping from her grip and landing on the floor with a bang, glass shattering and exploding around her feet.

“Shit!”

“Hello.” The stranger greets her, unfazed by her outburst. “I’m glad to finally—” 

And then he stops. His face contorts and he tries again, but the words won’t come out, like they’re lodged somewhere in his throat.

Ophelia blinks, rooted in place as Holden hurriedly throws a gray robe over the boy’s shoulders, slipping it over his body. He does something to him, and it makes him stop looping.

There’s a brief lull, a moment of nothingness, and then it hits her, and her knees start to feel less and less steady. She throws her hands out, blindly reaching and grabbing. Her fingers find the edge of the counter and she braces herself against it until her hands hurt, knuckles turning white. She waits until the nausea passes and all she’s left with is a half-delirious sense of _what the fuck_ that makes her brain tingle.

She screws her eyes shut. “Tell me this isn’t…”

Ophelia trails off, but the implication hangs between them all the same. A beat, and Holden balks.

“What? I’m not—it’s not—” He stammers, the tips of his ears turning pink. His mouth twists. “Ophelia, _please._ I was just now installing new hardware, updating his gyroscopic sensors. I’m not some sicko.” 

“Look, forget it.” Ophelia groans, tipping her head back.

The tv drones on in the background, the game all but forgotten. It doesn’t matter. She’s pretty sure she can’t make out the scraping of blades against ice over the blood pounding in her ears anyway.

Her throat burns, dry and uncomfortable, so she settles for raising her eyebrows in a way that says _if there’s an explanation for any of this, now’s the time to come forward with it._

“This has been a lifelong dream of mine, Ophelia.” Holden starts.

“A robot?” She hates how strangled it sounds.

It’s not much, but it’s enough to send him into a frenzy. She watches as his eyes light up, hands flailing as he tries to convey the magnitude of the situation.

“Not just a robot. An _android._ One that can cross the uncanny valley and come out the other side.” He beams, all teeth and pride, and there’s something chilling about it. “Pass for a human.”

Holden turns, still gesticulating as he admires his work. 

“I mean, it has bloody micro-expressions.”

“He.” Ophelia interjects. She pushes herself away from the counter, stepping closer to the figure in front of her. His shoulders are slumped, chin down, eyes open and unseeing, fixed on a random point on the floor. It’s almost like rest, but somehow less peaceful.

“And, look. I saw his—hardware, okay? Pretty sure it’s a _he._ ” And _god_ , she can’t believe she really just said that out loud.

Holden clears his throat. “Right. Well then, _he_ has micro-expressions. And full range of motion. I mean, physically it— _he’s_ nearly perfect.”

Ophelia lets herself be pulled in. She looks at him very slowly, appraising. Walks around and inspects him from every angle and— _shit._  

Holden’s not wrong. Everything, from the texture of his hair and his stubbled jaw to the curl of his fingers, is deceptively real. And when she leans forward to get a closer look at the freckle on his cheekbone, Ophelia’s pretty sure she can feel _warmth_ radiating off of him — the kind of residual warmth that clings to the back of the computer for a while after shutdown.

She swallows and takes a step back, putting some space between them. She folds her arms over her chest, meeting Holden’s expectant gaze.

“And? What do you think?”

Ophelia doesn’t reply. Instead, she says: “Does he have a name?” and Holden grins in this haughty way, as he does.

“Why don’t we let him introduce himself?”

Before she can reply, the android in front of her starts booting up. He lifts his head and glances around the room for a second, gathering his bearings, and she can’t help but think of that black screen you get after an unexpected shutdown. And then his eyes lock on her face and her breath catches. 

They’re blue, she realizes. But that’s neither here nor there. 

“Hello.” He says, offering his hand. “I am L.E.O.P.O.L.D. You must be Agent Radcliffe, Doctor Radcliffe’s daughter. I’m glad to finally meet you. He has told me so much about you.”

And — okay. _That’s_ a conversation for another day. 

Ophelia blinks. She’s—well, she’s not sure _what_ she was expecting, honestly, but the unmistakable Scottish drawl still manages to catch her off guard. 

They look at each other for a moment. And then, against her better judgement, Ophelia reaches out to accept the handshake. His hand is slightly warmer than before, his grip gentle and firm, skin softer than she’d expected it to be. Her stomach churns. 

“It’s—I mean. Ophelia, is fine.”

They stay like that, hands entwined, until she decides it starts to weird her out and she pulls back, letting her hand drop to her side.

“So.” She turns to Holden. “L.E.O.P.O.L.D.? What’s that, like an abbreviation for something?” 

He nods. “Logical Electronic Organism—”

“Okay, no.” Ophelia cuts him off, shaking her head. “That’s a mouthful. And not much of a name, either.” Her eyes flicker over to the android. “How about just Leo?” She says. 

It’s just a suggestion, but somehow it means more than it should. 

The edges of his lips twitch, a subtle curve of the mouth. He’s smiling, she realizes. Smiling _at_ her in a way that’s almost deliberate. 

There’s a pang of _something_ in her chest, and she feels the sudden need to divert her gaze to the nearest wall. She brings her arms up and wraps them around herself again. 

“What’s he for? I mean, what’s his purpose?” Ophelia asks, voice tight. She tries to tune out the soft, rhythmic breathing; ignore the subtle, pulsating hum of a power cell, not unlike a heartbeat.

Holden throws his hands up, defensive. “Nothing insidious, I can promise you that. Quite the opposite, actually — he is designed to act as a decoy target, a safeguard. To keep agents safe. To keep _you_ safe.”

She bristles at that, and Holden’s smile dims a little. 

“He’s harmless.” He says, softer. 

Ophelia’s eyes dart over in the android’s direction. She watches as he stares at a fixed point for a long moment, blinks once, then goes back to staring again. 

“Simmons can’t find out about this.” She decides. Scrubs a hand over her face in that _what the fuck am I getting myself into?_ kind of way. 

Holden deflates. “What? Why? I was hoping to bring her in on this and—” 

Ophelia’s head snaps up.

“Well then, you might as well pack it up right now.” She snorts. “Are you kidding me? You know how she gets. She’s all about the rules and ethics. Especially now. She’d lose her shit. _I_ still...don’t know what to make of this,” she waves a hand in the android’s general direction, “let alone Jemma.” 

She can tell Holden’s disappointed, but he doesn’t argue, so at least there’s that. 

“Okay.” He says, nodding. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Ophelia spends the better part of a week holed up in Holden’s lab. There’s a lot of data analysis and performance upgrades and reboots and occasionally some beer and takeaway. 

She finds herself pouring over all the notes and files sometimes for hours on no end. It’s easy to lose track of time here, under the steady flood of fluorescent lights, with the quiet hum of machinery softly droning on in the background, and little to no outside distractions.

It’s also surprisingly easy to lie to Jemma and slip away for large chunks of the day. But she tries not to think about that.

“Is that better?” Ophelia asks, glancing over at Leo.

He blinks once. Twice. And then smiles, which she assumes must mean his system has accepted the upgrade.

“Yes.” He nods. “Thank you, Ophelia.”

There’s something soft about the look he gives her, and she clears her throat, turning her attention back to the computer monitor.

“Just doing my job.”

 

* * *

 

She’s angrier the next time she sits him down for a software update. He notices. 

Maybe because of the way her fingers are pulling at his wires, harder and more carelessly than usual. Or maybe because of the music blaring in the background. 

Either way, his eyes are trained on her face, framing her with an expression that she can only describe as worried. Even though he’s _not,_ because he _can’t be._  

“You have listened to this particular track more frequently than others.” Leo rattles off, voice smooth and controlled. A pause, and then: “Is it a favourite of yours?”

Ophelia hates the way it sounds genuinely curious, as if he actually cares to know the answer. He _doesn’t._  

She grits her teeth, ignores it. 

“What, you’re monitoring my Spotify feed now?” It comes out more spiteful than she’d intended. Then again, it’s not like it matters. 

Leo stays quiet for the rest of the evening.

 

* * *

 

“That was stupid.” 

Leo blinks at her, eyes wide. His forehead creases, brows pulling down in a frown, and Ophelia hates how puzzled he looks. 

“I don’t understand.” He says, and it sounds sincere. “My primary directive is to protect and safeguard. That’s exactly what I did.” 

She sighs, rolls her shoulders. 

Well. He’s not wrong. She wonders why she’s even arguing. 

“It was still stupid. I could’ve handled it.” Ophelia insists, voice tight as she dabs at the cut above his left eyebrow. There’s a smear of blood peeking out from under his collar, staining the side of his neck, and even more of it soaking through the blue of his shirt. Her stomach twists. 

Leo reaches for her hand, fingers circling her wrist, and for a moment it’s like he’s keeping her palm pressed flat against his cheek.

Ophelia blinks, too startled to be angry. There’s a brief flash of cognizance in his eyes as he holds her gaze. A beat, and then it flickers out, and he’s back to the way he was, fingers loose and a pleasant smile curving the edges of his lips. 

“It is my duty to protect the agents of SHIELD.”

She shakes her head, disposing of the bloodied cotton bud and moving to apply a strip of synthetic skin over the wound above his brow.

 

* * *

 

“Your friends don’t like me.” Leo says right after they leave. He watches as Ophelia powers down her computer, screen fading to black, lid clicking shut. She frowns, spinning her chair around to face him. 

“What do you mean?” She asks. 

“They don’t like me.” He repeats, voice even. “Especially Jemma. She doesn’t talk to me. She acts like I’m not even there.” 

Ophelia’s mouth twists. 

“That’s not true.” She says, and it’s not entirely true, but it’s not _really_ a lie. She figures that’s good enough. “They’re just...wary, is all.” 

“Because of Ultron?” Leo guesses. He tilts his head ever so slightly, searching her face. She wonders what it is he’s looking for. 

“Yeah.” Ophelia admits. “For example.” 

Something sad passes over his features. She doesn’t know how to explain it, so she doesn’t even try.

“That’s not what I am.” Leo says, and his tone is more adamant than she thought it could be. “My primary directive is to protect and safeguard.” 

“I know.” She nods. 

He reaches for her, brushes his fingers against the valley of her knuckles. Her chest constricts as she meets his eyes. They look bluer under these lights.

“I would never hurt you.” Leo tells her quietly, sincerely. His fingers slowly slip from her hand.

“I know.” She says, and it’s soft. She gives him a small smile, and he reciprocates, slow and easy, lips curving. 

It looks so genuine. Makes it easy to forget that underneath it all he’s just several thousand lines of code, a mass of wires and a steadily pulsing power source. 

“Would you say we’re friends?” He asks. 

And, okay—maybe she should’ve expected this question to come up at some point, but it still manages to catch her off guard. She swallows. 

The whole point of him is to pass for a human, so he’s got to be lifelike, to a degree. But not _too_ lifelike. 

She could always tell the difference. She did the programming, after all. Was constantly updating code, making adjustments. She _could_ tell, but somewhere along the way the line started to blur and now she can’t quite stand the thought of making him sad, no matter how artificial that sadness may be, so she just shrugs and smiles and says, “Yeah, I guess we are.”

 

* * *

 

She’s angry again, the next time they meet. 

Leo stands off to the side, watching her, like he always does. He’s stuck on the way her fingers sweep all over the keyboard, lip caught between her teeth, like she’s concentrating.

She pauses to pop a pill in her mouth, washing it down with beer, and he frowns. 

“It is ill-advised to mix painkillers and alcohol.” He tells her, and Ophelia grits her teeth at how patronising it sounds. “If you have a headache, I can get the acupuncture needles—”

“Oh, fuck off.”

It’s like a slap to the face, echoing in the stillness between them. Leo falls silent, and Ophelia colours instantly.

It feels wrong somehow, to snap at him like this. There’s a tightness in her chest, something like guilt, and it’s all kinds of ridiculous, really, but it’s there all the same.

“That’s not fair.” She says, and it’s the truth. Slowly, she turns to face him. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

Leo blinks at her. “Did I do something wrong?” He asks, and it sounds so small. Her heart clenches.

Ophelia shifts in her seat and exhales, eyes fluttering for a moment. She presses the back of her hand against the throbbing ache in the square of her temple.

“No.” She says softly. “No, you didn’t.”

He’s closer the next time she meets his gaze. When he’s standing like this, leaning against the desk in the space beside her, their knees are almost close enough to touch.

“I have a question.”

“Ask away.”

Leo tilts his head, like he does. Inspects her. “Do you have any regrets?”

Ophelia makes a sound, something between a laugh and a snort.

“Sure.” She says. “Everyone does. And anyone who says they don’t either hasn’t lived enough or is lying. Or both.”

He nods at that.

There’s a soft sound playing in the background, the opening bars of a song that’s all too familiar. She frowns.

Leo shrugs. “Studies show music increases dopamine levels by nine per cent.”

Ophelia can’t help but smile. She reaches for him, even though she knows it’s a mistake. Lets her fingers tentatively brush over where his hand is gripping the edge of the desk, even though that’s worse.

Leo pulls her up and she stumbles, palms pressing flat against the stretch of his chest. Her heart is hammering against her ribcage. She wonders if his would be too, if he had one.

He steps around her, swapping their positions, until suddenly the edge of the desk is digging into her lower back, his arms bracketing her body and trapping her there. He thumbs at the idents in her hips and she shivers.

“What are you doing?” Ophelia asks unnecessarily, voice low and shaky. She already knows it’s coming, feels it in the way her muscles lock, but there’s still something agonizingly slow about it.

Leo leans in, lips softly catching on hers, more of a graze than a kiss. There’s a sterile kind of smell clinging to his skin, like with everything else in the lab, but the inside of his mouth feels hot and wet as he deepens the kiss. She tastes more of him like this, lips pressed more firmly against hers. His beard burns her skin where she’s got her fingers splayed against his cheek. It feels so _real._

And yet there’s something off about it, like the cloying aftertaste of a diet coke. Like artificial sweetener, and not real sugar. It lingers on her tongue longer than she’d like it to.

Still. She’s never been kissed like this before, and she’s not sure what that says about her.

For some reason it’s that particular thought, above all others, that sobers her up. She pulls away, dragging her hands down to rest on his shoulders, trying to put some space between them.

“I can’t.” Ophelia says. It’s strangled and pitiful and breathless and not at all as sharp as she had intended it to be. She swallows.

Leo’s eyes are fixed on her, lips parted. There’s a slight flush to his cheeks, something she’d coded for the interface a while back. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but she’s not so sure about it now.

His heavy, ragged breathing matches hers, and she can’t tell what’s mimicry and what’s not. She pushes past him, stepping off to the side, and he doesn’t fight. 

That’s when the realization hits her, sweeping to her stomach in a wave of nausea, and she feels the same way she did on that first day.

“I care about you.” Leo says over the pounding of blood in her ears. She squeezes her eyes shut. “I know you don’t think I can, but I _do._ ”

“Leo.” Is all Ophelia manages, because she doesn’t know what else to say. She exhales shakily, but her heart’s still hammering against her ribcage, so hard and fast it’s almost painful.

She wants him to understand that he shouldn’t want this, but she can’t find the words. Her fingers curl into a fist, and she taps her knuckles against her thigh. A part of her doesn’t want to have this conversation at all.

Ophelia turns back to face him, but instead her eyes catch on the linoleum beneath her feet. She can’t quite bear to look at him when he’s staring at her like that, hurt evident in the set of his hands.

“It’s not—” _Real,_ her brain supplies, because it’s not. What he’s feeling—what he _thinks_ he’s feeling, it’s not anything. It’s code and mimicry and emoting. It sits on the tip of her tongue but she ignores it, swallows around it. “It’s not that easy.”

“I know.” He says.

She thinks he really doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

Ophelia’s got a splitting headache when she finally comes to.

She slowly opens her eyes, blinks against the darkness. Blurry spots of white swim across her vision as the room spins.

She shifts, tries to move, but she’s numb all over and her limbs somehow feel both limp and heavy at the same time, like she accidentally slept on her arm for too long, except she can’t quite remember the falling asleep part, and she’s pretty sure she’s sitting.

There’s some kind of noise in the background, something like a keyboard clacking, so she assumes there’s someone nearby. Her head lolls for a second, and she groans at the effort of holding it upright.

“Shh.” A voice tells her. She’s not sure why it sounds familiar, but it does. “Shh.”

“What are you doing?” Ophelia mumbles into the darkness. Her voice sounds strange to her ears and her mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, like maybe she’s at the dentist.

“I need you conscious to map your frontal lobe, so you can’t be too heavily sedated.” There’s that unmistakable Scottish drawl again, closer and clearer than it was before. _Leo,_ her groggy mind supplies.

She can feel the warm weight of his hand against her cheek, the slightest pressure of lips against her skin as he leans in to kiss her temple. It’s not as comforting as it should be.

“The rest you can sleep through.” He adds.

“Are you going to kill me?” She asks, even though she knows it’s stupid.

Leo lets out a laugh, but she doesn’t miss the way he looks almost offended for a moment.

“No, of course not.” His fingers press harder against her cheek. “I’d never hurt you.”

“Why are you doing this?” She reaches out as far as her restraints will let her, fingers just barely brushing against his wrist.

“I’m doing this for you.” Leo tells her slowly, evenly. Like it’s obvious. “For us.”

He straightens up, smoothing a hand down his shirt, and walks back to the laptop. He strokes his fingers against the keys, gently but with precision. “There’s no reason to be afraid.” He continues.

“Wait.” Ophelia grits out. It feels like a last ditch effort. “We’re friends, remember?”

Leo pauses. His hands still on the keyboard and he angles his body towards her.

“Yes, we are.” He admits. “And now we can be so much more than that.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ophelia wakes up feeling indescribably disconnected for a second, like her body is in two places at the same time. There’s a brief and confusing moment of overlap in her mind, and then sudden clarity, like a rubber band snapping into place. She remembers.

The familiar coolness of the wedding ring on her finger. The soft cries of her baby daughter filtering down the hallway. The sheets tangled around her legs, pooling at her waist. The steady weight of the warm body lying beside her: Leopold’s sleeping in again.

She smiles.

This is her life.


End file.
